Two important dates have now passed in relation to Foreign
Account Tax Compliance Act ("FATCA")
– 30 June 2014 when Financial Institutions were required to
capture details of their existing customers for remediation
purposes and 1 July 2014 when Financial Institutions were required
to have procedures in place which would enable them to identify US
or UK indicia at new business take on.
To coincide with these dates, the Isle of Man government brought
into force the implementing Regulations which now, along with the
inter-governmental agreements, mandate that Financial Institutions
on the Isle of Man comply with their FATCA obligations. The
implementing Regulations are specifically The International Tax
Compliance (United States of America) Regulations 2014 and The
International Tax Compliance (United Kingdom) Regulations
2014.
Various countries around the world have also been progressing with
their FATCA compliance frameworks. In the Americas, Cayman has
published its implementing Regulations and Canada's
implementing legislation has received Royal Assent. In the Asia
Pacific region, New Zealand has entered into an IGA with the US and
Australia's implementing legislation has received Royal Assent.
In Europe, Bulgaria has reached an 'in substance' IGA with
the US, the UK has updated its FATCA regulatory guidance, Russia
has issued implementing legislation as well as guidance from the
Central Bank and Ireland has issued final regulations.
As we heard at our Global Tax Enforcement Conference, the US sees
FATCA as another tool in its information gathering arsenal and our
US lawyer colleagues were keen to impress the importance of
compliance and the likelihood that information exchange will lead
to a marked increase in the number of Tax Information Exchange
Agreement requests.
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